This section introduces aspects that may help facilitate a better understanding of the inventions. Accordingly, the statements of this section are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions about what is prior art or what is not prior art.
Within the typical neighbor discovery framework, each mobile node periodically broadcasts Hello messages to advertise itself. These Hello messages enable nodes in a given vicinity to discover their neighbors and the link quality for links to them. However, neighbor discovery itself is not straightforward as one must deal with collisions. Typically, distributed schemes are desired as centralized schemes are not energy efficient, especially for networks with a large number of nodes. Commonly used schemes are probabilistic, where a node randomly exchanges messages with its neighbors. The efficiency of randomized schemes can be further improved by using synchronized time slots and receiver feedback information. Neighborhood discovery commonly relies on the assumption that the network forms a single clique where all nodes are within transmission range of each other. In addition, nodes are able to detect their neighbors individually by means of a unicast transmission.
Generally speaking, such neighbor detection schemes suffer from the following shortcomings                1. Due to collisions, the presence of a mobile node may not be known to its neighbors.        2. Even in the case that each node transmits multiple Hello messages, there is no deterministic time period in which the entire neighborhood detection is guaranteed.        3. As a result of the above issues, determining the Wi-Fi neighborhood of a mobile node can take time on the order of seconds using such schemes. This process also disrupts ongoing communications.Thus, new solutions and techniques that are able to address one or more of the issues encountered in neighbor detection would meet a need and advance wireless communications generally.        
Specific embodiments of the present invention are disclosed below with reference to FIGS. 1-5. Both the description and the illustrations have been drafted with the intent to enhance understanding. For example, the dimensions of some of the figure elements may be exaggerated relative to other elements, and well-known elements that are beneficial or even necessary to a commercially successful implementation may not be depicted so that a less obstructed and a more clear presentation of embodiments may be achieved. In addition, although the logic flow diagrams above are described and shown with reference to specific steps performed in a specific order, some of these steps may be omitted or some of these steps may be combined, sub-divided, or reordered without departing from the scope of the claims. Thus, unless specifically indicated, the order and grouping of steps is not a limitation of other embodiments that may lie within the scope of the claims.
Simplicity and clarity in both illustration and description are sought to effectively enable a person of skill in the art to make, use, and best practice the present invention in view of what is already known in the art. One of skill in the art will appreciate that various modifications and changes may be made to the specific embodiments described below without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Thus, the specification and drawings are to be regarded as illustrative and exemplary rather than restrictive or all-encompassing, and all such modifications to the specific embodiments described below are intended to be included within the scope of the present invention.